Personalize the case

Personalize
the case:
Prospective Teachers or Interns

•
What are the key lessons you learned from Hillary’s case?
A:
After working with Hillary’s case, I learned about culturally relevant
pedagogy, culturally relevant strategies that enhance literacy teaching and
learning in secondary classrooms, and culturally responsive teaching. More
importantly, I learned that going the extra mile in teaching to accommodate
students and make sure they are involved in the lesson is worth the extra time
and effort involved.
•
What are the most common strategies for teaching literature in your classroom?


A:
The most common strategies for teaching literature in my classroom would be:
Strategy 1 – Build trust; Strategy 2- Become culturally literate; Strategy 4 –
Use effective questioning techniques; Strategy 5 – Provide effective feedback;
and Strategy 7 – Establish positive home-school relations.
•
What are the benefits and potential drawbacks of these strategies? 

            A:
Strategy 1 Benefits- Teachers who build trust have been able to
engender
in their students a level
of confidence and belief that what they do in that classroom is worthwhile;
Drawbacks- An often overlooked component of an effective classroom is mutual
trust between teachers and their students.  Strategy 2 Benefits- Teachers will learn about their
students’ language, interactional style, learning style, and values; Drawbacks-
Teachers assume the responsibility of being biculturally and multiculturally
aware of students. Strategy 4 Benefits- 
effective questioning promotes the development of analytical and evaluative
thinking skills and
higher order questions
allow students to see themselves as knowledge producers rather than knowledge
consumers; Drawbacks- it may be hard for teachers to initially think of
effective questions. Strategy 5 Benefits- effective feedback can be concrete
and specific; Drawbacks- if feedback is not effective, students know and may
become discouraged. Strategy 7 Benefits- parental support is key, especially
when teaching nonmainstream students who are identified as displaying
behavioral problems; Drawbacks- if there is no parental support or positive
home-school relations, students may suffer academically.
• As you begin to take on
more responsibility for instructional decisions in your career, what principles
will guide your decisions in teaching literature?
A: Student input will be
one of my first guiding principles, because it will shape what I have students
read, if students will be engaged, and if the lessons will go smoothly or need
to be adjusted. Another guiding principle I will use when making decisions
about teaching literature is to consider students backgrounds. This will also
help me choose what texts to teach and how to design my instruction to
accommodate all students. Lastly, I will use my own intuition as a guiding
principle. I think the best lessons happen when teachers follow their instincts
and stick to what they believe.